PPLTOTF(1)

💖 PPLTOTF — bestie edition 💖

okay so you know how we need Japanese font metrics for pTeX? yeah. that's this. ppltotf, uppltotf — they make Japanese pTeX font metric (JFM) files. it's giving "font factory but make it Japanese". 🎀

---

✨ NAME ✨

ppltotf, uppltotf — create Japanese pTeX font metric (JFM) 🦋

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

ppltotf [options] pl_file[.pl] [tfm_file[.tfm]]

---

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so like. ppltotf takes a Japanese property list (JPL) file and translates it into a Japanese pTeX font metric (JFM) file. no cap. the JFM it spits out? that's what you feed to pTeX and e-pTeX. 👑

uppltotf is literally the Unicode-enabled version of ppltotf. same energy, but the JFM it produces works with upTeX and e-upTeX. ✨

and just so we're clear, when we say (u)ppltotf in the sections below, we mean both of these programs, together, bestie trio energy. 🫶

here's the slay part: (u)ppltotf is upper compatible with pltotf. so if the PL file you hand it is for roman fonts? it just translates it into an ordinary TeX font metric (TFM) file. no biggie. 😌

so what's the actual difference between ppltotf and uppltotf? it's all about the output encoding:

• ppltotf always outputs JIS-encoded JFM.
• uppltotf outputs Unicode-encoded JFM by default.

periodt. 💅

---

🔥 OPTIONS 🔥

compared to pltotf, there's exactly one extra option added to (u)ppltotf. just one. iconic of it honestly.

• -kanji string — sets the input Japanese Kanji code. the string can be one of these, and only these:
  • euc (EUC-JP)
  • jis (ISO-2022-JP)
  • sjis (Shift_JIS)
  • utf8 (UTF-8)
  • uptex (UTF-8; uppltotf only)

⚠️ okay listen, this matters: when you specify one of euc, jis, sjis or utf8, both ppltotf and uppltotf output a JIS-encoded JFM. and when you specify uptex with uppltotf, then it outputs a Unicode-encoded JFM. so like, don't be surprised when your encoding doesn't match your vibe check. 😭

---

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• ptex(1).

---

👑 AUTHORS 👑

(u)ppltotf is maintained by the Japanese TeX Development Community — their site is <https://texjp.org>. 🫶

got a bug to report? bestie, do not suffer in silence:

• open an issue at the GitHub repository: <https://github.com/texjporg/tex-jp-build>, or
• send an e-mail to <issue@texjp.org>.

this manual page was written by Hironobu Yamashita. 💖

---

and that's the whole thing! 💅✨ this page shipped as part of Web2C 2026, dated 15 March 2019. go make some gorgeous Japanese font metrics, bestie — you got this. 🎀🦋🌸 💜